Posters with photos of people kidnapped by Hamas on display in Berlin (AFP)
New Delhi:
The Hamas group distributed a video of armed men tending babies in captivity on a channel on the instant messaging app Telegram.
The Gaza Strip-based armed group that launched a terror attack on Israel on Saturday and took some 150 people of different nationalities hostage released the propaganda video on the Telegram channel, ostensibly to show that they are treating the babies well.
A baby is seen in a stroller, while others appear to be in the four to six age group.
A man in camouflage combat gear is seen with an AK-series assault rifle across his chest, holding a baby, whose back rests on the gun. The same video also shows a group of men pushing a stroller to calm a crying child.
Near the end of the video, a Hamas operative asks a child to say “Bismillah” while offering a cup of water. The child says it and takes the cup. The same child was seen in the beginning of the video, sitting on a table and crying as a Hamas operative wrapped a bandage around his blood-stained ankle.
Israel and the US have vowed to do everything in their power to free the hostages, who are believed to be held in Hamas shelters in the Gaza Strip, one of the most densely populated places in the world.
Thousands of Palestinians fled to southern Gaza today in search of refuge after Israel warned them to evacuate ahead of an expected ground offensive against Hamas. Hamas killed more than 1,300 Israelis – most of them civilians – in an attack compared to September 11 in the US.
Nearly 1,800 Gaza residents – again most of them civilians and including more than 580 children – have been killed in waves of rocket attacks on the densely populated enclave.
Hamas said 13 of the 150 hostages had been killed in Israeli airstrikes. It was previously said that four hostages were killed in bombings. German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, who visited Israel today, said Hamas was using residents as a “shield.”
Israeli ground forces have also carried out “local” attacks on Gaza over the past 24 hours to “clear the area of terrorists and weapons” and try to find “missing persons,” the army said.
A Reuters video journalist has been killed in southern Lebanon, the news agency said. Several other journalists were injured, including two from Al-Jazeera, the broadcaster said.
With input from AFP
